Cloth cutting machines are widely used throughout various sewn products industries, e.g., the garment industry, for cutting or slitting stacks of fabric layers into various pattern designs. The cloth patterns so cut are used to make numerous articles such as clothes and the like. Cloth cutting machines are basically of two types. The first type is generally known as a straight knife machine where the cutting blade is a straight blade or knife, and this blade is vertically reciprocated by a motor attached to the machine. The second basic type is a circular knife machine where the knife blade is circular, and the blade is rotated in order to provide the cutting action on the cloth stack or the like. In both these types of machines, the knife blades are mounted on a standard between a machine base which slides or rolls over a cutting table, and a motor which drives the knife blade. And both these types of machines are provided with one or more manual handles by which an operator manually guides the cloth cutting machine relative to the cloth fabric stack to be cut in order to follow the pattern on the stack and, thereby, cut out the fabric sections as desired. The operator's work environment is often relatively hot to begin with, and use of the motor driven machine through a cloth fabric stack tends to add to the heat of the environment.
Accordingly, it has been the primary objective of this invention to provide a cloth cutting machine which is manually operable in which the machine's handle, and thereby the machine operator's hand which grips that handle during use, can be exposed to a relatively cool air flow so as to enhance operator comfort during use of the machine in the event of a warm working environment, e.g., in summer months, and can be exposed to a relatively warm air flow so as to embrace operator comfort during use of the machine in a cool working environment, e.g., in winter months.
It has been another objective of this invention to provide a cloth cutting machine in which the machine's standard is provided with a cooling air manifold that distributes cooling air from a cooling device first through a hand air port defined in the standard that is so oriented to direct cooling air toward the machine's handle, and second through a base air port defined in the standard adjacent the machine's base which is oriented to exhaust cooling air from the manifold substantially rearwardly of the standard relative to the cutting direction of the machine during use of it, thereby providing the double function through a single cooling air manifold of providing cooling air to an operator's hand when it grips the handle and providing cooling air to tend to cool the machine's standard during use of the machine.